Re: Non-English software
On Sun, May 20, 2001 at 08:04:42PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sun, 20 May 2001, Radovan Garabik wrote:
>
> > ...
>
> > > Please go ahead. If someone non-Swedish finds the software in
> > > Debian packages and feels it is very useful, he/she may start
> > > a project to translate it into English or other languages. It
> > > is exciting!
>
> > > However, the software will have to have a license document in English.
>
>
> > No. Why should debian force authors/maintainers to write licenses
> > in English? IIRC, the consensus of the last discussion about
> > non-english licenses was that the original license is legally
> > binding and the english translation serves only as a description
> > and hint about the real license for us linguistically challenged
>
> > IMHO short notice in debian/copyright in English, saying something like:
> > "The original license in Swedish says you can freely distribute, use and
> > modify the program" is enough.
>
> > FWIW, my next free software project will have a license in Esperanto
>
> If your license is in Esperanto, how can anyone in Debian be sure that your
> license passes DFSG?
there are at least two more debian developers who understand esperanto
and since the debian package will be most probably made by myself,
you can bet I will not misunderstand the intent of the license :-)
> Even a translation explaining the license is difficult,
> unless the translated terms are also treated as having the force of the
> license; otherwise, a mistake in the translation could result in us putting a
> package in main that belongs in non-free, or worse, violating the license
> terms by including the software in Debian.
>
yes, therefore the original license should be reviewed by someone
who understands the language, or clarified by communication with
the upstream author, and eventual translation is just a hint.
> Since English is the lingua franca of debian-legal, I think the main reason
> for wanting licenses in English is so that we can protect ourselves from legal
> troubles.
well, we have to trust maintainers anyway - and they DO make mistakes sometimes
anyway, debian could be deeply in legal trouble anyway - according to Czech
(and maybe Slovak, too) law, software author cannot:
1) decline responsibilities for the software - the words NO WARRANTY in GPL
are meaningless, if you take a GPLed program produced by a Czech author,
and it blows up your computer and kills your mother-in-law, you can sue him
(and probably win)
2) he cannot decline the right to be rewarded for using his software -
so, if you are happily using Czech-made program with GPL written all over
for years, and the author suddenly decides you should pay him, he can
sue you (and probably win)
what is even worse, if a program is released by someone from outside Czech
republic, AND SIMULTANEOUSLY (i.e. during 30 days) released in the Czech
republic (think about all those ftp mirrors!), Czech legal system applies
to the program _in addition_ to original license.
see http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-9912/msg00243.html
--
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| Radovan Garabik http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk |
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